Queensland Abortion Trial May Revolve Around One Word: “Noxious”

The Queensland abortion trial is no doubt the most historic reproductive rights case in Australia. A couple is being prosecuted for illegally obtaining an abortion in 2008 via a shipment of RU 486. Now, it appears that trial will revolve around one word in the abortion law, and how it is defined could determine whether Tegan Leach will serve up to seven years in jail for inducing her own miscarriage.

Leach is being prosecuted by the crown for having an abortion for “lifestyle” reasons, rather than medical necessity. In Queensland, abortions can only be obtained for a threat to a woman’s life or physical or mental health. However, the law specifically refers to how the abortion is performed, and the jury may not feel that the drugs used by Leach qualified.

With the jury set to return a verdict tomorrow, it appears the case hangs on the definition of one word in the Queensland abortion law.

The jury has asked for directions from Judge Everson on the meaning of “noxious.”

Under Queensland law it is an offence for a woman to “administer to herself any poison or noxious thing” to obtain an abortion.

Obstetrics expert Professor Nicholas Fisk from Queensland University presented evidence to the court that the abortion pill RU486 was not injurious to the woman who took it, but was a very efficient abortifacient – a substance which induces an abortion.

Prosecution, however, argued that simply by forcing the body to miscarry, the drugs are in fact “injurious.”

In his final address to the jury, Mr Byrne said abortion drugs are intended to be injurious to a woman’s body.

“These drugs are intended to cause the expulsion of the foetus from the woman’s body,” he said.

“They are intended to change the state of the woman’s body. They are intended in one sense of the word to be injurious, hurtful, harmful and unwholesome.”

Debating the term “injurious” moves the goalposts drastically, especially declaring anything that “changes the state of the women’s body” as such. In that broad definition, pregnancy itself is “injurious” as it causes pain, bleeding, changing in hormones, loosening of ligaments, raising and lowering of blood pressure and the like.

Still, there is another hurdle that needs to be overcome before the jury can convict Leach and her boyfriend, who is facing three years jail time for giving her the drugs. No one can prove she even had an abortion.

Professor Fisk told the court that after reviewing the evidence, he believed “on balance” that the drugs Ms Leach took induced an early miscarriage.

But under cross-examination by defence barrister Kevin McCreanor, Professor Fisk said it was possible, but unlikely, that Ms Leach was not pregnant. He also said it was possible she had a spontaneous, natural miscarriage.

“I’m not aware of any convincing evidence that she’s had a termination of pregnancy,” Professor Fisk said.

Did Leach in fact have an abortion via RU 486, or did she miscarry on her own with no help from the drug? Was she even in fact pregnant in the first place? She never even had her pregnancy confirmed by medical professionals. If she did take the drugs, were they in fact a “poison or noxious thing” as the law states, or does the fact that RU486 is low risk and causes so few complications mean that the law doesn’t apply?

A jury is meeting to decide all of these questions, and the verdict should be released soon. However, we will still be left with the bigger question — how and when will Queensland address the flaws in their 100 year old abortion law?

Police charged them under the archaic Queensland Crimes Act, that still sees abortion as a crime because the state has not had the courage to reform it.

Many politicians in New South Wales and Queensland see the continued inclusion of abortion in their crimes acts as a dormant issue. Doctors get around the law by finding the women seeking abortions are doing so to prevent physical or mental harm in line with court rulings made last century.

They say why change the law when its not necessary? What they mean is they want to avoid the noisy minority who oppose abortion making their lives difficult. When Victoria changed the law in 2008 MPs were aggressively targeted by anti-abortion campaigners. They were sent graphic pictures of aborted foetuses. Some endured threats and targeted, personal, campaigning.

The anti-abortion lobby is loud, it is organised and often it is downright offensive. In 2009, a lead Victorian campaigner, Pastor Danny Nalliah of Catch the Fire Ministries, laid the blame for the horrific Black Saturday bushfires at the doorstep of the Victorian parliament.

The fires were God’s punishment for abortion law reform, he claimed. How charged and muddied this debate has become.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, nominally hailing from Labor’s Left faction, should have the courage to stand up to the bullies who seek to stop politicians doing their job.

She should be leading the charge to reform abortion law and bring it into line with community standards and expectations. Shame on her that she has taken the easy out of hiding behind the claim that this case is about drugs.

And of course, the anti-choice advocates are using the law to claim it is for the “protection” of doctors who don’t want to perform abortions and women who are being coerced into the procedure.

If Queensland abolishes the current law and adopts the barbaric Victorian model as demanded by abortion activists that would mean a baby can be aborted up to 24 weeks – older than some babies in our hospital nurseries – with no medical justification required, and by the most unspeakably cruel methods.

On the colluding nod of two abortion clinic doctors, the license to kill extends right up to birth, even for entirely healthy but “unwanted” babies of entirely healthy mothers.

In the Victorian model, any doctor who conscientiously objects to facilitating these “on demand” abortions has committed an offence.

Leading human rights lawyer Jesuit Father Frank Brennan called this Victorian legislation “totalitarian”.

The existing Queensland law is an essential defence for doctors and nurses who refuse to co-operate in the unjustifiable killing of babies.

The existing law is also a defence for women who are being pressured into abortion.

They can and do appeal to the fact that “you cannot tell me to do something that is against the law”.

The Queensland case will be precedent-setting however it is decided, as for the first time abortion opponents are seen doing what they really want to be doing: punishing women for not wanting to have a child. When the verdict comes back, we will learn if that is the jury’s position, but either way, we’ve already discovered that is the position the politicians of Queensland, itself.

Still pisses me off to see that politicians and the anti-choice crowd thinks they have a right to involve themselves in private medical decsions. Women aren’t idiots. We have brains and we use them every day. Stay out of our bodies!!!!

crowepps

“These drugs are intended to cause the expulsion of the foetus from the woman’s body,” he said.

“They are intended to change the state of the woman’s body. They are intended in one sense of the word to be injurious, hurtful, harmful and unwholesome.”

This is an interesting argument. The drugs return the woman’s body to its non-pregnant state. I can see where someone could argue that they are ‘noxious’ to the FETUS, but I sure can’t see how ‘in one sense of the word’ they are ‘injurious’ to the woman. They ‘change the state’ of her body by returning that body to its normal healthy state. The only way that could be interpreted ‘in one sense of the word’ as injurious would be if women are all presumed to ‘normal’ when pregnant. Ending the pregnancy removes the ‘hurts and harms’ and permanent negative changes to the body implicit in continuing a pregnancy.

And, of course, there is absolutely no way at all to PROVE that the drug caused the expulsion of the fetus since it could have been an average everyday miscarriage.

Be interesting to see what the Jury decides.

meg

I do not know if I could have the courage to stand up to Queensland’s “noisy minority”. As it is I can barely face our anti-choice / “pro-life” crowd (which I never have faced except in anonymous comments, letters and discussions that usually stayed friendly to a point) but they often have the usual communication problems of fanatics… too much zeal and emotion, too little real knowledge about that which they are arguing against, faulty logic that is obviously faulty as revealed with the barest scrutiny, plus when the discussion does not go their way they become mean. The Queensland anti-choice/pro-life seem to express themselves with more sophistication, more intelligent-sounding word selection, and less emotion…and their wording of things is very very disturbing even if they do not rely on description. It is quite an experience to read the same kinds of lies told in a more sober ‘reasonable’ voice. How exhausting and trying it must be to be a feminist in some parts of Australia. And probably often how thankless.

crowepps

Section 225 of the Queensland Criminal Code (‘Offenses Against Morality’): Any woman who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, whether she is or is not with child, unlawfully administers to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatever, or permits any such thing or means to be administered or used to her, is guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for 7 years.

Another Board provided the TEXT of the Queensland Code, and pointed out the part that removes the motivation behind it from ‘might injure herself’ or ‘respect for fetal life’ to ‘doesn’t want to be a mother’, to-wit, <b>”whether she is or is not with child”</b>.

arekushieru

Do you happen to know if ingestion is illegal in Queensland or just posession like most other autonomous states? This just brings to mind so many people’s arguments against abortion because they think that you cannot do whatever you want with your body because they erroneously believe it is ingestion that is illegal.

nutty

This comment has been removed.

RH Reality Check is an unapologetically pro-choice publication, and the majority of our readers supports the struggle for sexual and reproductive rights, health, and justice. We realize that some of our readers and commenters do not support these goals. We embrace and encourage vigorous debate and civil discourse on the site and welcome comments representing diverse points of view that are evidence-based and reasonably engage the debate. We reserve the right to delete, without further explanation, comments that misrepresent evidence or promote misinformation, that threaten or demean others, undermine the civility of discussion or seek to divert conversation from the topic of the original article. We reserve the right to ban users who repeatedly abuse commenting privileges.

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nutty

This comment has been removed.

RH Reality Check is an unapologetically pro-choice publication, and the majority of our readers supports the struggle for sexual and reproductive rights, health, and justice. We realize that some of our readers and commenters do not support these goals. We embrace and encourage vigorous debate and civil discourse on the site and welcome comments representing diverse points of view that are evidence-based and reasonably engage the debate. We reserve the right to delete, without further explanation, comments that misrepresent evidence or promote misinformation, that threaten or demean others, undermine the civility of discussion or seek to divert conversation from the topic of the original article. We reserve the right to ban users who repeatedly abuse commenting privileges.

–RH Reality Check staff

arekushieru

…rePORted. Btw, most women who have abortions DID use some form of contraception. WHOOOPS. Btw, ‘bitch’…? Nice misogynistic language from a misogynistic anti-choicer. But, I thought you anti-choicers at least liked to preTEND that this wasn’t all about controlling women as it really is. Abtw, don’t bother responding if you do so in hopes I will read it. I won’t and, unlike many anti-choicers, I keep my promises.